I think my freaking video card might be failing.. 9_9

Well it looks like my good old Nvidia Geforce 9800GTX video card is on it's last breaths. What does make it worse is that the issue I'm having could even be something else.. I'm hoping I don't have to end up swapping out multiple things to find the problem. sigh....

Well here's the story:
I was talking to my good online friend Mech-Maker and watching The Angry Video Game Nerd in-between chat messages. Anyone who uses yahoo messenger knows that if your chat window is in the background, a reply message from your buddy will show up at the bottom right side of your screen with what he said. Well unfortunately fate was not on my side that night, as soon as that little message popped up with Mechy's reply AVGN totally froze. I couldn't close the window and eventually my curser froze. What was more disturbing is that I soon started getting video artifacts all over, color on my screen started changing or becoming distorted.. I got 4 rows of matrix-looking green dots down along my screen...

Well I pushed the reset button on my machine after all the normal lock-up key combinations didn't work. Anyway figuring a restart fixes almost everything I thought that'd be a one time occurrence. However I was in for a big surprise. Even in the BIOs screen and the windows loading screen I was STILL having distortion like before I reset and what was even WEIRDER is that as soon as it loaded to the desktop I saw the AVGN video image that was on the screen when it froze! I didn't even think that was possible since RAM had been refreshed. After a few seconds the PC reset itself and started looping.

Luckily my education wasn't for nothing. I was able to press F5 during boot up and get the option for starting in Safe-Mode. The computer was able to boot up successfully then which told me that it must not be a hard drive or RAM error if it's able to function at the bare minimum of visual quality and such. I then uninstalled and downgraded my video drivers since it was the first and easiest fix I could think of.

Well the computer gods were on my side that night a bit.. that got rid of the matrix lines and such and my computer has been functioning just fine. I'm able to open documents, browse the internet, and watch online videos and such just fine... However tonight I discovered I'm not out of it yet.

I'd actually suspected this ever sense, which is why I've hesitated to run any games till now. I fired up Half-life 2: Episode 2 and what happens was pretty much what I fired. The main-menu loads, which any player will know, also loads an in-game level in the background. Well that background in-game scene works just fine for about 20 seconds.. but then those cursed artifacts return and the game locks up with looping sound.

Here are my ideas for what I have on my hands here, feel free to give me input if you know your computer stuff.. I'd actually appreciate it.

1. I need to open up my computer and give it a good dust down. Seeing as how my card doesn't seem to fail until it really starts working hard could mean that it's overheating... This would actually be pretty nice if this is the case since it's an easy fix.

2. My video card is simply fried somewhere in it's higher functions. It can handle basic video but when it has to start calculating 3D and other high-end graphics information it simply cant. Maybe the GPU is damaged or some of my graphics card memory is burned out.

3. My PSU (Power Supply Unit) is going out and is isn't able to supply enough electricity to my graphics card. Again this is an easy thing to replace and not as expensive as a video card. However seeing as how I'm going to try swapping video cards first.. this would only mean I'd have to go back to the store again which sucks.

4. I have some bad RAM sticks in my computer. This one I think is'nt as likely since I think I'd be having some issues just doing basic things on the desktop if this was going on. However since I have 2 sticks of RAM it could be that my second stick is bad and that when I start using more RAM consuming things like games, when the computer crosses over to the second stick for more RAM it hits a bad spot and crashes. I really hope this one isn't the case since it's just another thing I have to swap out.. 9.9

If there are any computer experts who would like to agree with me or disagree or give me any other info please let me know.

I'm no computer expert, but I did have particular trouble with my 9600GT several months back, where in the middle of a game, the screen would just turn off, my monitor would say 'no signal' and the sound would enter an endless loop. The very first time it happened to me, I thought "oh well done NVIDIA, here we go again" and searched up the problem, and discussed it with the guys here on the Pit. Since I bought a GTX260(ironically NVIDIA again) everything's been fine. I don't know, but since the 9600 and the 9800 are closely related, it could also mean a related problem. Best fix: buy a new card.

I'm hoping this won't be your problem and it'll turn out it was just a bit of dust in the machine.

Hey half-dude I know you hate me, but for a living I do this kind of stuff all day long.

1) Yes dust out your video card and verify that the fan can spin freely (one hit of the fan should let it spin in at least 2 rotations w/o stopping). If your fan's seized up due to dust theres not much you can do to clean it (the damage is done and the dust is in the bearings). You can try to purchase a replacement fan online, but thats getting more complicated than needed.

2) Update your video drivers. And when I mean update, you go add/remove programs and remove the old ones. Restart. The DL the latest ones and install them. Then restart.*

*note: did you update your nvidia drivers recently? Cuz a recent release on some nvidia drivers caused the fan to stop working, which lead to artifacts.

3) Swap test with another video card and see what happens.

Other notes:
-A bad PSU would make the computer not turn on or the computer would power off suddenly.
-If you think your GPU is fried then try to get it replaced under warranty. If its an ASUS card, generally they have a "okay we'll replace it" attitude.
-Think you have bad RAM? (Doesn't sound like it to me, with bad RAM you'd get consistent blue screens and your computer would be SLOW) then DL memtest86+(http://www.memtest.org/) and run it overnight. If 20 passes are safe, then your RAM is fine.

It's a combination of the drivers funking up and the video card not getting properly cooled. I've experienced (and continue to experience) extremely similar situations. (Including old images being set to the desktop) Though, removing the drivers is not really needed. You should make sure your drivers are up to date, of course, but to get rid of that issue, you only need to reapply your wallpapers in nvidia's nView properties.

As for the "dots" or various other artifacts. That's due to the video memory being too hot. (You would receive different visual errors if it was the actual GPU)

Find out the temperatures of your GPU/GPU Memory, specifically memory (If it's idling above ). All you might need to do is open up the card, clean it all off, and replace thermal paste. At worst, you can buy a new cooling fan. (Though, depending on whom you bought it from it could still be under warranty ... and that would not be a bad thing to exercise instead of doing this.)

It doesn't sound like your issue is too major, though. Until you resolve any heat issues you may have, it would be wise to turn the computer off whenever you can. These artifacts happen because the memory is above operable temperature levels and the values inside them become corrupted. Enough exposure to that kind of treatment the damage can become permanent.

So, find out the temps (people online say idle on that card is around 60C which is not very encouraging ... if you're there or higher, I would greatly implore you to replace the thermal paste to something with better heat transference. i.e. Arctic Silver)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I'm sorry about your card, it's actually a very good card.

...But i couldn't help but notice you have such a similar nickname as me, and i thought i'd just point it out, even though it's completely irrelevant and off topic. C:

WHAT? NO SIZE TAGS? BLASPHEMEY!

Thanks guys for the input, I really appreciate it all. I'm going to go out to MicroCenter tomorrow (Monday) and pick out a card. I feel it'll be a little harder seeing as how Nvidia's new card model numbering system really throws me off. I mean they went from 9800s to 250s.. I don't get it.

If any of you guys can suggest a card that's as good or better then my last card but isn't too expensive, feel free.

BTW: I don't have you Omegaslayer

I paid ~$215 Australian, for a GTX 260. A good card for its money.

Why didn't you just make a thread originally asking what card you should buy ... I don't get it.

The GTX260 (215 cores) is a good card, though, if you wanted a single card solution with more longevity, you're better off checking out the GTX275s.

If you want one of the cards that's going to debut, the GTX470 will be about $350 when it comes out (the GTX480 will be about $500) might be something to check out.

Also, you should really repair the 9800 even if you're not going to use it as your GPU anymore. Nvidia supports mixed and matched SLI from GF8 and on. Meaning, you could dedicate the 9800 to do additional rendering or physics or whatever. It's changeable in the driver properties in how you want to delegate the tasks.

The numbering scheme changed because they didn't want to add a new digit, and, these cards are a completely new architecture. If you're curious what happened to the 100s, they're mobile GPUs, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a 300M series either.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Thank you for the suggestions, I went ahead and got a 260, it was the highest they actually carried in the store. I got it for $180.. a little disappointed that it's only as good or maybe even a little worse then my old card.. but at least getting a new card fixed the problem.

Crono said:
Why didn't you just make a thread originally asking what card you should buy ... I don't get it.

Because I didn't want to bog down the thread list by making two threads about something that could be dealt with on one.

You don't seem to understand ... there was no point in going on about how to fix your current card if you had no intentions of repairing it, and you just wanted to know what to replace it with. Almost nobody in the thread said "you should replace the card it's done", so it's not a path that developed through the course of the thread. Which means, you probably were already planning on replacing it when you originally posted ... so why didn't you just make a thread asking for advice on that ... is what I was saying.

A GTX260 is better than a 9800GTX. Actually, a GTX260 is comparable to two 9800GTXs in SLi. There's some games that will not be able to play maxed with a 260. While that's not always important, it is nice when you buy a new card that you have SOME time before there's something you can't max out. If you buy a 260, that's not the case. But, it's a good card, it's certainly better than what you had.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Oh, ok well I think you misunderstood the point behind which I made this thread for. I wasn't asking for suggestions on how to fix my old card, even if I got some I don't have the tools or know-how to do anything. I just remember the people here having good knowledge on PCs, and wanted a second opinion on my own idea of what the issue was. I wanted to see if others thought the issue was solely with the video card or perhaps with another piece of hardware. I'm sorry if it came out a different way in how I said it. Just looking for a second opinion, that was it.

I'm actually not all that thrilled with the new card at this point. Granted I haven't tested it on my games other then HL2e2, L4D2, and Crysis Warhead. Where I was hoping for a slight increase in performance, instead it feels almost a little bit slower.. but by a very small amount.. so just a little disappointing I guess.

I actually checked the statistics of the new card with the old one I had, and it actually seems like the new card is lower end then my 9800! The new one has slightly more VRAM (896MB vs. 512MB), and of course it's DDR3.. but it seems countered by a slower Processor speed and memory clock. The man at the store said since it's next generation architecture it should still be faster then my old card though.

I don't know... maybe my other hardware is bottlenecking it or something I don't know.

Yeah, I haven't been entirely happy with my performance since I got the GTX260, lots of things, say L4D are a bit choppy at times. My brother says that my 2.2GHz processor is bottlenecking the card, so I don't want to say anything bad about it just yet. A perfect example of a game lagging, even at the lowest possible graphics settings, is Pro Evolution Soccer 2010, which leads me to believe it's the processor rather than the card.

But let me know of how you find your card performs over time, I'd love to know(I'm assuming you'll have a better processor).

An easy way to tell is if the game starts lagging no matter what graphical setting you put it on.

A lot of games now, pretty much, require dual core or higher. So, if you, for example, still have a single core CPU, you will notice some lag as a result in certain games.

But, in general, the 260 should perform pretty well (assuming you got the 215 core version, not the stock version)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I currently have a 3.0Ghz AMD Athlon X2 (dual core) ... so I dont know, maybe when I want to upgrade to Windows 7 I'll get a quad core, those are getting pretty cheap nowadays actually. But I don't know, maybe I just didn't get the best motherboard.